Tag Archives: writing for profit

Google Authorship and Author Rank for Writers

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The SEO landscape is always in a state of flux, but we may be on the verge of an unusually radical algorithm change from Google with the implementation of Authorship and Author Rank. The focus is beginning to shift to who wrote a piece of content rather than where it’s posted and how optimized the keywords are. This is an important distinction, once the Authorship system is in full swing search results from Google will heavily favor sites with Authorship enabled and content written by experienced authors with authority in their industry. Continue reading →

Article Writing Service Open for Business!

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I am proud to announce that the official Writers With Hats Article Writing Service is now open for business and taking content orders.

This is a big step for WWH as a business, but it also presents an exciting opportunity for publishers, writers, and anyone else who has a need for top-quality web content from professional American writers. We offer some very unique features with our writing services, including direct-to-WP posting and even guest posting. Continue reading →

How to Write a Query Letter For Magazines (and Newspapers)

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Learning how to write a query letter is an essential step to take for any writer who wants to make a career out of their work, especially those who want to write for magazines and newspapers. Fiction writers can certainly make use of them as well when looking for agents and publishers or submitting to literary magazines, but this article will focus on pitching articles, news, and features to magazines and newspapers- we will cover fiction queries in a future post. Continue reading →

How to Write Newspaper Articles

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Learning how to write newspaper articles is one of the most fundamental skills for any writer to have and it lays a foundation for many other formats and allows you to flex your journalistic muscles. Newspaper article writing is unique in that it’s harshly succinct, but learning how to write  in this simple “just the facts, ma’am” style carries over wonderfully into other areas of writing and teaches you to write more clearly without bloating your prose- after all one of the golden rules of writing is getting rid of words that you can do without. Continue reading →

How to Find Clients as a Freelance Writer

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Whether they want to earn a decent living or just want to make money on the side, most freelance writers know that private clients are where the money is at. What we mean by ‘private’ is that these clients aren’t working with you through some system like Elance or Odesk, they are communicating with you directly and handling everything privately between you, which is much more professional and fosters long-term relationships. Private clients tend to pay more than most content mills, but they also tend to be harder to find. Fortunately, there are several ways you can make landing writing gigs a much easier process.

Build an Internet Presence

If you don’t have a professional website for your freelance writing already, creating one is a excellent way to score private clients. While making your website or blog, you should try to target a few keywords that will help it rank well.

Instead of sending your resume and samples as a file attached to an email, you can conveniently send all possible private clients to this website. Also, once your website starts to rank well in search engines, employers will start contacting you instead of the other way around. You can help your website rank well by utilizing back links and other search engine optimization tactics.

Check Out Job Boards

There are many job boards out there that are specifically for freelance writers. Once you weed out any illegitimate job offers, you will be left with an ample amount of advertisements to respond to. Of course, you’ll most likely be in competition with many other freelance writers, but if you follow the employer’s directions down to the letter, you’ll be ahead of most of the competition. If you check job boards often, you may find a very high-paying employer every once and a while.

Ask Past Private Clients

Most of the time, it is a good idea to stay in touch with past private clients in case they ever have a need for more work. If you have had previous private clients in the past, you should get back in touch with them and stay in touch, even if they currently have no work available for you.

Sometimes, previous private clients may have content that they need written, but they may have forgotten about you or they may have lost your contact information. You’d be surprised about how much work you can get by just asking previous employers who were pleased with your work.

Create Social Media Profiles

As social media websites increase in popularity, more and more freelance writers are finding gigs through these websites. As a freelance writer, you should create social media profiles that are strictly for professional matters. Ensure that you keep your private profile separate from your professional profile.

If you post helpful tips and make it well known that you provide writing services, private clients may eventually offer you work. Maintaining a social media profile typically requires little time investment, but it can potentially have bountiful results.

You can attain a reasonable amount of private clients by using only one of the methods listed above. However, if you utilize all the methods listed above for a long period of your time, you’ll eventually start getting more work than you can handle. When it comes to attaining private clients, patience and persistence is the key.

Book Review: Writer’s Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing

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One of the biggest leaps in a writer’s career is the one into magazine article writing. It’s a field where jobs are always available and success is within reach for those with talent and dedication, but it takes a lot of industry knowledge to get your foot in the door.

The Writer’s Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing is an attempt at providing an all-in-one resource for beginners to familiarize themselves with how the magazine article business works. It was written and compiled by a large number of magazine and journalism experts, which is good because having multiple perspectives into such a complex marketplace can help readers get a deeper understanding of it.

I would recommend doing some basic reading on the subject and developing your skills gradually through freelance writing before trying to make use of this book, because it makes certain assumptions about your skill level and may confuse someone who is completely new to writing articles in general. It’s a fantastic resource and can put you on the right track, but it won’t make a resume for you and when it comes down to it, experience is what matters- you need to take action, not just read books.

The book isn’t very heavy on jargon and when it introduces new terms and concepts, it almost always makes it clear and understandable for beginners. This is great for the business and marketing oriented chapters of the book because it’s best to have everything clearly laid out and bluntly stated, but the sections on fundamental article writing skills are too skimpy to be considered an all-in-one resource. You’ll need to do some side reading on journalism and familiarize yourself with concepts like the inverted pyramid- and of course, practice practice practice.

I consider the Handbook of Magazine Article Writing a must-read for people who aren’t familiar with querying, selling reprints/rewrites, finding markets, and common rights issues. However, if you still need help with the fundamental/non-business stuff like writing technique, researching, and interviewing, you’ll need to hone your skills and do some learning on your own before you’re ready to actually use the information in this book. One thing is for certain- if you plan on writing for magazines in the future, picking up this book will make it much easier for you.

[easyreview title="Handbook of Magazine Article Writing" cat1title="Summary:" cat1detail="A suitable introduction for beginners, but further reading and experience is required to have a real grasp on the subject." cat1rating="4"]

The Most Popular Freelance Networks for Writers

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One of the easiest ways to find clients as a freelance writer, especially for beginners, is to join one of the most popular freelance networks. These sites are essentially platforms that allow clients to post jobs in a variety of different areas (we will be focusing on writing, of course) and freelancers can apply to the ones they are interested in doing. Some networks and platforms are more competitive than others, some are more suited for beginners and others for experts, you need to find your sweet spot in terms of price point and competition in comparison to your credentials.

Generally, you won’t get paid as much for your writing if you work through a freelance writing network as opposed to finding clients on your own, but the process is much more streamlined and the time you save searching for work may be worth it. Working on these sites is great for beginners because it helps them build their reputation, skills, and portfolio while making money.

Here are some of the most popular freelance writing networks that I’ve used in the past and my recommendations on who they are fit for.

Elance

Their commission: 6.75 % – 8.75 % of the job price.

Elance.com is one of my go-to freelancing sites, it’s very popular with a ton of active clients constantly posting new writing jobs so there’s never really a shortage of work. My advice is to build up your profile and portfolio areas before you start putting in applications for jobs, clients will expect to see samples of your work. Posting a link to your own site with client testimonials would be a big plus as well and give you an edge over the competition.

Prices at Elance are better than most other freelance marketplaces, it depends on what the client is looking for. There are certainly a good amount of them who want some cheap outsourced help ($.01/word Filipino writers flock to those jobs) that would be a waste of time for you to get involved in, I wouldn’t write at Elance for less than $.02/word, and that’s for the most basic of article writing jobs. The amount of cheap outsourced work is relatively low compared to other freelance sites.

The downside to Elance is the limitations they put on contractors who don’t want to pay any fees, as a free member you’ll only receive 10 ‘connects’ per month. You expend one connect every time you apply for a job, so only put in applications for realistic opportunities that you have a good chance to get. When I was an active member I got by just fine on 10 connects per month, don’t waste them on ‘featured’ job applications- most job posters will read through each and every one, your portfolio in comparison to others will be the deciding factor, not a green border around your application.

All in all, Elance is a great place to get your freelance writing career off the ground if you can put together a good portfolio.

Odesk

Their commission: %10

Odesk.com is quite similar to Elance in terms of framework, but there are a few notable differences in the communities that make them unique.

The biggest difference is that Odesk seems to have a much more prolific cheap outsourcing job community instead of a high-paying freelance writing scene, so don’t expect very impressive payment as a contractor. However, if you specialize in a certain format (ebooks, journalism, copywriting, etc.) then you can still find a good amount of well-paying jobs. For beginners who don’t mind working the $.01/word to $.02/word range for standard web articles, Odesk is a great way to make some cash.

The good thing about Odesk is that you can apply to as many jobs as you want, no monthly limit or fees like Elance. However, their cut of the dough is a bit larger at %10.

Now, these two sites hardly even scratch the surface, but these are the two that most of us are familiar with. Other notable networks for writers include Guru, Freelancer, and TextBroker. I’ll cover some of these other ones (as well as more advanced options like Demand Media and using Craigslist to find writing work) in the future.

What are your recommendations for freelance writing networks and websites?

 

The Best Invoicing Software for Freelancers and Service Providers

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Once you start providing services for more high-end and professional clients, they will probably expect you to invoice them for the amount of the order instead of just deciding on a price and the client sending payment via PayPal or some other service without any documentation. You’ll need to find the best invoicing software to accomplish this, luckily there are a ton of great solutions online.

Invoicing your clients with an online invoicing tool makes you seem much more professional, organized, and prepared. It’s also very helpful for both your client’s records and your own, the best invoicing services even keep a log of all of your transactions for easy reference whenever you need them.

So which one is the best invoicing software? Here are a few that we have used and recommend:

CurdBee

The existence of CurdBee means that you have no excuse to not use invoicing for your orders. Instead of telling you why, let me show you why:

Look at that beautiful Free plan and the features it includes- it has near-limitless functionality that most of us would be more than happy to pay a monthly fee for: Customizable branding, unlimited invoices and clients, online payment support (PayPal, Google Checkout, and tons of others), even automatic data backup for no cost at all.

When you do start getting into the paid plans, the feature set gets even more impressive and cost-efficient. The Big plan is great if you manage a team or run a subscription service, and for $20/month it’s cheaper than most other invoicing services.

CurdBee is the best free invoicing solution I have ever come across.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks is probably the most popular online invoicing solution around, and with good reason. FreshBooks is a very reliable and streamlined invoicing service that does everything right, and it has a great set of features to help out your business.

The only problem I have with FreshBooks is with it’s price- it simply doesn’t compete with CurdBee’s ultra cheap plans with just as much functionality. Here’s what FreshBook’s pricing chart looks like:

As you can see, the free plan here only supports 3 clients, which is enough to call it a decent trial. However, the problem begins with the next plan up, the $19.95/month Seedling plan. This plan only supports 25 clients, which is nothing considering that most service providers work with tons of different people and often have huge contact lists. It’s not until you start paying $29.95/month that you get to have the freedom of an unlimited client list, but the added features are comparable to CurdBee’s $5/$20  per month plans so it doesn’t seem like a good deal.

It’s also worth noting that FreshBooks does not appear to support Google Checkout (though it does have authorize.net), feel free to correct me on this in the comments.

FreshBooks is being used by over 3.5 million members, and I suspect that’s because of all the integration support that it has for other platforms. FreshBooks plays nice with all sorts of project management systems, accounting software, and other popular web tools that help you run your business. This alone is a very attractive aspect and shouldn’t be glanced over, if you manage your team with something like Basecamp and want your invoicing to mesh with minimal administrative work, FreshBooks may be more efficient than other services.

LessAccounting

This invoicing tool is more geared towards small/medium businesses than small-time freelancers, LessAccounting provides great features for managing groups and common business expenses.

The price is $30/month for unlimited everything, and that includes ‘members’ on your account, something which FreshBooks and CurdBee lack (at least on non-enterprise price bracets). Their bank integration is also a unique feature, you can make transactions and send reports right from your LessAccounting account to your bank.

LessAccounting also offers an hourly bookkeeping service, which means you can hire one of their certified accountants to handle your finances and sort out your records. This invoicing tool seems to cater to larger operations, and it also plays nice with almost as many services as FreshBooks does.

Would you recommend some other invoicing apps besides the ones I mentioned? Let us all know about them in the comments below!

How to Write SEO Articles with Keywords in 5 Steps

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Learning how to write SEO articles can seem daunting for someone without experience in internet marketing, but rest assured- using keywords in your articles is really quite simple. 

One of the most important factors when it comes to ranking a web page for a certain search term is how often a certain keyword is used throughout the article. This is why requests for SEO articles are so common for freelancers and web writers, they are essential to driving traffic and ranking in search engines. This concise guide will show you how to write SEO articles with keywords in just a few simple steps.

Before we get into those steps, you should be introduced to the concept of keyword density. The amount of times a keyword gets mentioned in a particular page determines how optimized that page is for the search engines. You usually want to keep this at %1, which means you want to mention the keyword about once every 100 words.

1. Use the keyword for research

We’re going to assume that the preliminary stages of keyword research have already been done and that your chosen keyword is targeting a viable market. That said, in order to rank for this keyword, you should search for it on Google to A: check your competition and B: see what everyone else is writing about. Try to out-do all of these pages in every way you can, and use them as resources to your advantage.

2. Use the keyword in the headline/title and description

how to write seo articles

One of the most important places you can put keywords is in the title or headline of your article. Try to use it verbatim (or close to it) and make it flow naturally, write a title people would want to click on. For example, if your keyword is “Blue Widgets” you may want to have a title like “How to Use Blue Widgets” or “Blue Widgets vs. Red Widgets”, something along those lines.

3. Use subheadings and organize your article

You should always use subheadings when you write for the web. You can do this by using <h3> tags (or the equivalent in your WYSIWYG editor). This helps keep your thoughts organized and much easier to read, and it also provides a great place to put your keywords. Search engines pay special attention to anything placed in header tags, so try to sneak your keyword into a subheading if it sounds natural.

4. Write the article naturally

The problem with most SEO articles is that the flow and voice of the article gets lost behind the writer or company’s objective to increase search engine page rankings. To avoid writing articles that sound forced, fake or in common writers slang appear to be “stuffed,” first write your article without the purposely including keyword or keyword phrases. Only after it’s complete, go back and up the density a tad by adding new sentences and playing around with your wording.

5. Check for keyword density.

how to write seo articles

In order to successfully write a keyword rich article, the article should be dense or filled with the keywords or keyword phrases. On average an SEO article should have a keyword density of at least 1% (once every 100 words). To figure out the keyword density of an article, multiply the number of times your keyword or keyword phrases appear in your article, divide that number by the word count of the article, and then carry the decimal over to the right twice. Be sure to include any times you write the keyword in title or header tags as well- those are just as important as in-content keywords.

You now know how to write SEO articles!

Some website owners prefer to have different keyword densities or even multiple keywords, but the basic principles still apply. If you follow the steps and just keep your keyword in mind as you write, you’ll know how to write SEO articles with keywords in no time at all.

8 Tips on Taxes and Self Employment for Writers

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Everybody has a relative they can’t stand, and for the freelance professional that bothersome kin is most likely Uncle Sam and his money hungry child the IRS.

When winter rolls around it’s time for freelance professionals to start looking for tax breaks that will keep hard earned cash exactly where it belongs—in the bank. While obvious tax breaks  like business  related travel and offices supplies will help save cash, here are 8 tax breaks for freelance professionals that’ll further help you stick it to good ole’ Uncle Sam:

Work-Related Education

According to the IRS, “If you are self-employed, you may deduct your expenses for qualifying work-related education directly from your self-employment income.” In doing so, freelance professional further reduce the amount of their taxable income. To qualify for work-related education tax breaks “the education must be required by your
employer or the law to keep your present salary, status, or job” or “maintains or improves skills needed in your present work.”

Unemployment Resources

As a freelance professional finding clients and work is an integral part of your income process. Found yourself without work this year? If you subscribed to a service, agency, or job board in order to find work and as a result was charged a fee, there’s a tax break with your name on it — waiting for you to claim.

Professional Membership

Are there certain professional memberships you need to stay ahead in the game? A recent CBS MoneyWatch article revealed that, “You can also write off memberships to local organizations if you can prove they help you find clients, such as memberships to the local Chamber of Commerce or the Lions Club. These organizations exist to largely provide networking opportunities so they’re easy to justify.”

Niche Purchases and Research

If part of conducting business is dependent upon purchases within in a specific industry, for instance beauty creams for a beauty product reviewer or movie tickets for a movie blogger, those expenses may be deducted from your taxable income. Remember to itemize your receipts and keep them in safe place.

Home Office Deductions

Freelance professionals enjoy a lot of perks when home is where your business is.  Aside from the occasional cock-a-doodle hair pajama strike, one perk that yields a
return is deducting part of your home expenses during tax season.  In accordance with the IRS requirements “Expenses that may be deducted include the business portion of real estate taxes, mortgage interest, rent, utilities, insurance, painting, repairs and depreciation.” To get more specifics on this big ticket tax break, visit
the IRSwebsite and check out home office deduction reminders.

Business Bad Debts

Let’s face it—working for yourself is great but waiting on a client to pay their invoice can be nerve-wracking. Never thought you’d get the money you are owed? If you included “assess [to] late fees …in a written agreement” Business.com says you can deduct what you are owed plus some of the interest charged on unpaid invoices.  However, the IRS states in order to receive the tax break, “You can only claim a bad debt deduction for an uncollectible receivable if you have previously included the uncollectible amount in income.”

Communication Expenses

Are you paying to communicate with clients? Communication services like a portion
of your cellphone bill, International Google Voice calls, Skype, and any other communication expenses made for the sake of business may be deducted to gain
further tax breaks.

Health Insurance

“Effective March 30, 2010, if you were self-employed and paid for health insurance, you may be able to include in your deduction any premiums you paid,” reports the IRS. From health insurance to property insurance, if you’ve come out of pocket in the name of business there is a tax break that will help you keep more of your money this tax year.